Forest fires kill 112 in Chile
Worst disaster since 2010 earthquake
SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Firefighters in central Chile on Sunday battled to quell fierce forest fires that have killed 112 people so far and razed entire neighborhoods, while President Gabriel Boric warned that the country faces a “tragedy of very great magnitude.”
Hundreds of people are still missing, the authorities say, stoking fears the death toll will keep climbing as more bodies are found on hillsides and houses devastated by the wildfires.
The fires that gathered momentum on Feb. 3 now menaced the outer edges of Vina del Mar and Valparaiso, two coastal cities popular with tourists.
The urban sprawl of those cities accounts for more than a million residents west of the capital Santiago.
Drone footage filmed by Reuters in the Vina del Mar area showed entire neighborhoods scorched, with residents rummaging through husks of burned-out houses where corrugated iron roofs had collapsed. On the streets, singed cars littered the roads.
“The wind was terrible, the heat scorching. There was no respite. People dispersed everywhere,” said Pedro Quezada, a local builder in the Valparaiso region, standing amid charred debris of his destroyed home.
Videos shared on social media showed hillside fires burning close to apartment blocks in the Valparaiso area, spewing smoke into the air. Thick haze blanketed other urban zones, hobbling visibility.
The Chilean authorities have introduced a 9 p.m. curfew in the hardest-hit areas and sent in the military to help firefighters stem the spread of fires, while helicopters dump water to try to douse the flames from the air.